


Contrition

by perivale



Category: Trigun (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Anime/Manga Fusion, Biblical Allusions (Abrahamic Religions), Biblical Imagery (Abrahamic Religions), Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Christianity, Gen, Religion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29808057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perivale/pseuds/perivale
Summary: Contrition: deep sorrow for sin or guilt.Nick believed in fire, in brimstone, and a God who may not have intended to be cruel, but who’s indifference amounted to the same thing as cruelty. He knew his soul was weighed down by his sins and there was no way he could ever atone. He didn't believe he could be better, but Vash made Nick feel like he should be better.
Kudos: 6





	Contrition

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to wyluliwerewolf for reading this over for me, as well as everyone else that read bits of it as I was going along and encouraged me. 
> 
> I've tagged with "anime/manga fusion" but what I really mean is "I have played fast and loose with both sets of canon and picked out the bits from each that I felt offered the most angst potential".

I.

Nick was not the Father.

He was not the Son.

He thought, some days, that he could be the Ghost, but every time he lit up yet another cigarette he felt the faint burn in his lungs and he knew that he was still

_(depressingly? disappointingly?)_

alive.

_(he can’t truly say he’s alive because this isn’t living this sitting around until he gets his marching orders this is just waiting inexorable and ineffable he’s a bowstring pulled back and waiting to be released but the waiting climbs between his shoulder blades and slips under his skin like an itch he will never be able to scratch)_

He threw himself into the orphanage, kept building it up with worn-out tools and the energy that he had nowhere else to channel. The physical labour smothered the mix of fear-hope-anxiety when the days that crept past turned to weeks turned to months and he still hadn’t been summoned to play his part in the plan, and he half let himself think that maybe he was starting to find the absolution he’d been desperately hoping to find for as long as he’d been conscious of his sins.

Nick used the time to live his alternate life, running his fingers over the worn pages of the Book of Common Prayer and exhorting the benefits of regular confession (and regular offerings to the orphanage) until everyone in the thirty ile radius he’d arbitrarily designated as his new parish simply rolled their eyes when they saw him coming. 

He wondered if any of the parishioners suspected he had never lived a life outside of the counsel of the wicked.

_(how can a sinner like him defend the orphan and plead for the widow how can a sinner like him seek justice_

_no-one ever asks the priest if he’d like to confess after all how can a man of god need confession and he is grateful that he has been spared that small mercy full of faith and doubt as he is)_

Nick was running over the books for the orphanage when his orders arrived - no herald angel or being of light appearing before him and bringing him the gift of commandments. Just his orders, beamed directly into his mind, slipped in like they’d always been there and it was only now that the box containing them had been unlocked. The seventh seal had been opened. 

He hated it when Legato used his powers like that. A man could use a conversation before being sent to the gallows. 

He hated the reality of what he’d have to carry out more. 

He hated knowing that he had no choice most of all - that he hadn’t had a choice since he opened up his heart in the form of an orphanage.

_(the word says to let little children go to the kingdom of heaven and he does not want to see Legato’s interpretation of that teaching he cannot say no)_

He lit a cigarette to have something to do with his hands while he thought. His hands didn’t tremble - they would never tremble, the training was too thorough for that - but he stared out of the window without truly seeing the yard of the orphanage below and he thought about what was required of him.

_(he already knows his past actions have ensured that when his day of judgement comes he will be weighed in the balance and found wanting but he had been trying to make up for his failings_

_but what else can he do he is not the father son or holy ghost he is but one small implement he has his orders and he will carry them out)_

II.

He could have been in Hell.

That would have been fitting, he thought. Why bother to save the burning for his sins until after he’d died? He knew what they were, after all, and all the repentance he could give meant nothing while he kept on breaking the same commandments. 

_(it’s a stutter now a skipped heartbeat the small tug of his faith? morality? humanity? at the back of his skull but he breathes through it each day and he’s almost convinced himself he doesn’t care)_

The deserts of this planet had heat baked into them from the moment the first of Gunsmoke’s twin suns crept above the horizon, but the heat slinked away with the sunset and the chill was even worse than the heat with the addition of the way the wind cut through his clothes. He hadn’t exactly dressed for a desert hike, after all. He didn’t believe in a literal interpretation of the forty days and forty nights wandering the wilderness before this, and he certainly didn’t believe it now he had first hand experience of what the Son supposedly went through. He had barely made it to four, sweating his life away in the day and spending the nights curled up against the Punisher with his mind repeating the orders he had to follow in the same litany he followed when praying the rosary. 

He had his orders. He was prepared to carry them out. He was ready to lead someone to the gallows - lead them to Knives, in actuality, which he knew was worse.

On the fourth day he rose again, ready for another battle with the shifting sands that made up the scenery to his pilgrimage, and discovered that his water container had sprung a leak and run dry in the night. There were no saviours on his cross; no-one owed him a miracle. The pale horse was circling and preparing to take him.

_(he doesn’t pray for salvation he doesn’t want to attract the attention of any god that might be listening to a sinner as forsaken as he is right now no matter how convincingly he plays the part of priest)_

Eventually Nick gritted his teeth, shouldering the Punisher and setting off. He could die sitting in the heat, or he could die searching for a better option, and he’d spent the last seven years searching for a glimpse of salvation so there was no way he would give up now.

He had no idea what time it was when he could no longer ignore the pressure of his swollen tongue between his teeth and the steadily-increasing throbbing sat behind his right eye. Both reminded him that it didn’t matter how much the Eye and Chapel had taught him to overcome his biology, some things on Heaven and Earth were unconquerable and his desperate thirst for water was one of them. He gave up at that point, propped the Punisher above him in the sand and the vain hope that it might afford him some shade, and lit a cigarette and waited for death and the devil to fight over who would claim him first. 

_(his instructions are to act pathetic and half dead from wandering the desert in a daze because the target could never resist a butterfly with a broken wing and he almost laughs because he’s never been much of an actor and at the time he wondered why the Eye had picked him for this mission but now he realises he was always the sacrificial lamb and there would be no acting involved at all -_

_but he doesn’t laugh because he’s dying and alone and scared not of death but scared of what he knows will be waiting for him after and he runs through every curse he can think of and every blasphemy he could use but ultimately maybe it’s fitting that he dies alone and his passing is unremarked and all his life all his training amounts to nothing and he will return to dust without anyone knowing of his failure)_

Nick’d already resigned himself to the death he could feel creeping up on him by the time he saw a glint in the distance. He prayed to the God who’s name he’d just been cursing that this might be the salvation he’d been waiting for.

He knew he’d found the opposite when it was Vash the Stampede.

III.

Vash - just Vash, no more Stampede, not now Nick knew him, knew that having his real and true smile turned on him felt like a benediction - was not what he expected. His orders hadn’t told him how to identify his target and at the time he’d wondered if he was supposed to play Thomas and ask to see his hands, but it had been obvious that he’d found him from the mayhem that followed immediately after meeting the planet’s most wanted outlaw.

_(the things his orders didn’t cover are many and Nick categorises them in the first few days of knowing Vash: he shoots like his gun really is an extension of him not a separate implement and he pretends to be chasing women in a show of swagger and bravado but really it’s another layer to the mask he’s crafted and he’s the wolf dwelling happily among the lambs not the bomb clicking ever closer to detonation that Nick’s orders had painted him to be)_

The insurance girls had been a surprise, as had the mechanical spiders and the chase across the desert, but not enough of a surprise to stop him from beginning the process of ingratiating himself to Vash and needling the man just enough to try and stop him from looking any deeper than the surface of Nicholas D. Wolfwood, chain-smoking contradictory man-of-the-cloth looking to recruit lost sheep back to the fold. 

_(lord what the hell is he doing here)_

Vash had picked up that there was more to him than the travelling priest he’d been playing within the first few days - although maybe that was Nick’s fault for meeting both triumph and disaster in the shoot-out and revealing his cross was full of a lot else besides mercy. He could only hope that the gunman had concluded that even priests were better off learning to shoot due to the occupational hazards of ministry on an outlaw planet, and that he’d think no more than that about Nick.

This was Gunsmoke, after all, and everyone had their secrets.

Like the details of exactly what happened to cause a sixty-billion double dollar bounty to be placed on their head. Nick knew, of course, all the Eye knew. Know your enemy might be the only commandment he and Knives would ever agree on. He knew the man standing in front of him and declaring his undying love for donuts as a shield to stop the girls asking why he’d cried at the sight of this city’s Plant half an hour ago wasn’t a man. Had wiped an entire city off the map. Wasn’t human by any definition. 

_(he’s human in all the ways that count he loves he cries he feels all his emotions deeply like each hurt each happiness is his first despite the fact he’s over a century and a half old_

_he’s good really good_

_lord what the hell is_ **_he_ ** _doing here)_

Nick believed in fire, in brimstone, and a God who may not have intended to be cruel, but who had applied a sustained indifference to the casual and often petty malevolence Nick had seen meted out by humans throughout his life. He believed his hands were full of blood and there was not enough water in the world for him to scrub himself clean. 

_(he could heal the blind he could cure the sick he could say the right things but at his heart at his core there’s a hole he savours pain on his tongue just like the wine from communion because at least it proves he’s still alive)_

He believed in the need to weigh up the options and to try and take the least evil route, but he was a pragmatist first. Since the first time he’d risen up and pulled the trigger he’d always seen Thou Shalt Not Kill as an aspirational statement that had been scrawled down by a long-dead preacher from another life with no understanding of the level of persecution man could sink to. Sometimes life demanded a sacrifice. 

_(wasn’t the whole point of the faith that the ultimate sacrifice had been made before he was born he’s given blood he’s taken wine and he’s still stained and tainted he’s still washing and washing and the damned spot won’t leave)_

There was no serpent seducing him when he’d first picked up a gun. It wasn’t the human willingness to be led into temptation that had motivated him. It was the desperate fear of a prey animal running scared and looking for any option to fight back - the sheep that struggled against the threat of the wolf at the door. A choice had to be made.

A choice always had to be made.

Most of the time he believed that this was the only way he could live. 

Sometimes

_(at night always at night when he shut his eyes and saw every evil he had ever visited on this world and saw the sinful works of his flesh_

_by sacrificing someone’s life to preserve his own had he also sacrificed his own innocence his own humanity?)_

he knew he was wrong.

Nick papered over his doubts, hiding his eyes behind sunglasses so no-one could see his easy smile reached no further than his mouth

_(broomhead couldn’t think he was the only one to master that trick)_

and kept cigarettes on him so he was never without something to do as a distraction

_(maybe they’d finally kill him one of these days)_

and kept defending his choices because the descent to hell was easy so long as his best intentions kept paving the way.

_(the son heals the unclean and raises the dead on the same day but he is aware he is of mortal flesh instead he is aware of his inadequacies and limitations he has to make choices he makes the right ones the ones that stain his soul scarlet a little bit less that weigh him down with smaller stones he has his orders and he will carry them out)_

He was not a believer in redemption. 

He did not want to believe in redemption.

He knew redemption was not as simple as begging for forgiveness. Redemption required repentance. He was supposed to pull his right eye out if it caused him to sin. What repentance could he achieve when his whole body was the source of his sin? What repentance could he achieve trapped on this planet, where being better would simply move the scars from sitting on his soul to being worn on his body like a souvenir?

_(not that he was capable of scars any more not since that trace of humanity had been washed away in a twisted form of baptism when he took a new body in service of the Eye and that’s the truth isn’t it that Vash isn’t the only inhuman thing sitting at this table pretending like he isn’t a monster stealing in with the night)_

But Vash made Nick feel like he should be better. He looked at Nick with soft eyes, like he believed the two of them were one and the same in the way they both choose to hide their sorrow behind sunglasses and drown their regrets in alcohol, like he believed Nick could put the past behind him and be reborn free of his past sins. Like Nick could live according to the same ideals he subscribed to. 

Like Nick wasn’t already too marked by sin to be anything other than the chaff destined for the fire. Like he wasn’t following orders to bring Vash to heel and doom humanity in the process.

He had his orders. He was prepared to carry them out. 

_(the transubstantiation required to turn Nicholas D Wolfwood into a better man is a far bigger miracle than a few loaves and fish_

_so he leaves_

_and hopes Vash can bring himself to forgive him for the things he is still lacking)_

IV.

He could be the saved thief, he supposed, granted deathbed forgiveness, hoping the sincerity of the few good works he’s done can counterbalance at least a little of the scarlet in his soul, but he suspected

_(he_ **_knows_ **

_deep and certain in his bones in a place where the systematic retraining of his nervous system couldn’t touch_

_in the root of the root where he keeps the meaning of him locked in a place that no one ever knows)_

that some sins are beyond repentance no matter how piously he could plead for mercy.

_(so go save someone else, needle-noggin)_

V.

Augusta was a shitshow.

VI.

The two years after Augusta were worse. 

VII.

He couldn’t decide what emotion to feel when Vash waltzed into the bar in Kasted City, arm around some kid’s neck. He’d been following cold trails and half-formed leads ever since he’d discovered there was no body in the wreckage of the city

_(ever since Knives’ orders had been to keep searching)_

but he’d felt his jealously-guarded hoard of hope start to trickle out like grains of sand counting down. The strength of that weapon. 

_(he’s been thinking about betraying his orders he knows what Knives is trying to do he cannot let it happen he wants to be better he wants to stop Knives but he needs Vash he needs an avenging angel a saviour a liberator_

_a messiah)_

Lord. Vash could’ve been vaporised and not left so much as a whisper to let anyone know he’d gone and on his darkest days Nick’d begun to think that was what really happened.

But it wasn’t. He was here.

Nick’s spent the past two years chasing a ghost and here he is. 

_(he can’t name to what he’s feeling two years of anger and frustration roiling together like a swollen sea that needs a miracle to calm it_

_but pushing the swell down is an overwhelming sense of relief because Vash is alive he’s feeling the stirring of hope starting to flutter in his chest again the timer runs in reverse and the top bulb swells like he’s bringing in the harvest he has his orders and maybe just maybe he can work this out)_

Nick had been half dead and living off locusts in the desert and charming damaged people into repairing ancient machinery and Vash had been - what? playing house? pretending at humanity again? He’d given up all pretence at dignity in the hopes of living a quiet life and eking out a pathetic existence even though he should have known that would never be an option.

_(when he snaps he isn’t really snapping at Vash he’s snapping at himself because lord he wants not the sins of the flesh he wants the existence he’s just called pathetic he wants to pretend at normality but for this entire conversation he’s been counting the toll of the last two years in the new scars across Vash’s body he knows normality isn’t an option for either of them_

_he has plenty of new scars as well but it’s easier to hide marks made on your soul)_

He dropped in the news about Caracasse and left Vash to stew in his own thoughts with his gun. 

_(some pilgrimages weren’t meant to be made by one man alone it’ll have the blood of a crusade if Knives has his way Nick will not make it easy for Knives to bring about his revelations Nick will go with him wanted or not)_

Being back in action with Vash was exhilarating - even if he insisted on no killing. Whatever. Nick’d talked him back into picking up his gun and he was starting to sound like his old self. He felt like he could give Vash a bit of leeway and he hoped Vash didn’t pick up the smirk he was hiding behind his sunglasses as they moseyed into the house to bring a non-fatal end to the bandits. 

_(maybe he can cure the sick maybe he can say the right things maybe he can raise the dead and resurrect a doomed humanity with Vash’s help)_

VIII.

It felt right to slip back into travelling with Vash, to enjoy the petty fights and the way Vash always skipped out on paying the bills at restaurants. Lord, he could even forgive the end of Angelina II and the way trouble had invited itself back into his life and led to them bickering in the back of someone else’s van and fighting over the last drop of water. 

_(even if he’s crazed or half-dying of dehydration at least he’s not worrying not chasing every lead and trying not to panic when he thinks about Knives waiting in the wings waiting to swoop down and play the role of all four horsemen because he finished judging humanity long ago weighing the entire race in the balance and finding them wanting_

_at least he feels like he can be better than he was like redemption might be possible even for a sinner like him_

_at last he feels like he can be better than he was like redemption might be possible even for a sinner like him)_

Nick’d even convinced himself that they might stand a chance against Knives - like Vash might stand a chance against Knives. He was still following his orders on the surface, playing the devoted servant and barely even daring a whisper of rebellious thought inside his own mind because he didn’t know exactly what Legato could monitor but he had hope and he just had to get Vash to the right place and hope his saviour complex would work in his favour for once.

_(Vash is a brightly joyous burning thing sometimes he’s so bright it hurts Nick’s eyes to look at him sometimes Nick’s so full of hope it hurts Nick’s heart to look at him)_

Then the city onboard the flying ship crashed and things promptly went back to being a shitshow of Old Testament proportions.

_(he’s always been one for blasphemous rumours but he’s sure now that God isn’t listening that maybe God abandoned humanity at the moment they climbed onto the SEEDS ships and thought they knew enough to create another Eden to replace the one they’d frittered away_

_his God is all fire and brimstone and he has no idea how to plead for mercy)_

IX.

Nick could tell that something was waiting for him at Caracasse. He’d been snappy as a result, smoking more than usual and barely managing more than a bitten-off sentence to his travelling companions. 

The girls probably thought it was because of the fight over Zazie. That had rattled him, but it was a rehearsed argument for him at this point. Vash’s lamentations had got nothing on the sins he counted whenever he closed his eyes, uncomfortable but well-worn like the rosary tucked into his back pocket. He had done his best to make peace with the hole in his soul that had been ripped out at seven and that he’d never managed to patch back up. He’d been wobbling lately but he knew what he had to do.

_(the excuse of just following his orders can’t help when he’s barely paying lip service to them like a bored parishioner sitting in the pews yawning through another lengthy sermon)_

He could only have described this as a sense of impending doom, and it increased the closer their ragtag group got to the abandoned town. There was a prickling round his skull and he’d felt the itching gathering under his shoulder blades, like a sandstorm gathering on the horizon of his mind. 

_(like wings threatening to burst forth from his back and cover him in shining fire)_

He half expected that God was ready to finally smite him where he stood. Maybe the sins tallied on his soul had finally outnumbered any possible good he could do. Maybe redemption was no longer an option.

Maybe Nick should’ve suspected Chapel. He was not the Father, Nick wasn’t the Son, except for all the ways that they were the unholy inverse. Nick was moulded in his image, sent forward into the world by the Eye to spread the good word. Knives would enjoy the perversity of sending the mentor to put down his favourite project. 

_(he still can’t capture the apple_

_he doesn’t know if that’s significant)_

His orders have changed.

_(panic-fear-terror does Knives know does he suspect can he tell Nick is weak like all humans and swaying into Vash’s temptation should he pluck it out should he snuff himself out like the altar candle after a service he cannot think of any other way to escape)_

He has his orders.

He will not carry them out. 

X.

When Nicholas D. Wolfwood first picked up a gun, it wasn’t his first mistake but it might have been his worst. It was the first blood on his hands and it had shaped the course of his life, dropped him into a river that had swept him away so swiftly he couldn’t even scream for help. He’d washed up on shore too late to reach salvation. 

Sometimes life demanded a sacrifice. 

Sometimes life demanded that you were that sacrifice. 

Sometimes someone could be walking around, body alive but already marked by Azrael as one of his own. 

_(like the Toma slaughtered for meat head gone but running because the body didn’t know it was dead yet how long had he been doomed? since he abandoned his orders? defied Knives? met Vash?_

_since he was born and coated in original sin?)_

He told Millie. She didn’t really know what he meant - how could she? He’d kept everyone in the dark, the girls even more than Vash - but she listened, because she was good and she wanted to help. Maybe he should have tried confession before this, let the sins trip off his tongue one-by-one and lighten the load by sharing it with someone else. 

_(in another life on another world he could’ve loved her properly)_

Confession continued the next morning. He still didn’t dare to lapse into total honesty, still afraid that Knives or Legato or Chapel or another Gun would know he’d defected so he still danced around the subject as much as possible but he had to tell Vash. He had to make Vash understand. He had to know that Knives would be dealt with.

_(he needles him because he is Nick even now he needs to know that Vash will carry on that he’s the saviour Nick’s been hoping that he is and it’s a distraction when Nick’s still smug and cocky and good at getting under his skin_

_in another life on another world he could’ve loved him properly)_

Then Caine shot at them and Nick decided the secrey was enough. Let Vash wonder why he knew who Caine was. Let Vash wonder how much he knew in total. It could be explained later, probably in the wreckage of the town, and he could tell the girls at the same time. 

_(but first he has to handle the Father)_

He sent Vash off, using Caine as a distraction. 

Some things were personal.

_(he’s the prodigal son returning home he is found from being lost he will wash his hands free from sin he expects no compassion but he may show his own mercy)_

Chapel was surprised to be faced by Nick. He usually prided himself on the blank slate of a face he provided, but Nick had known him over half his life and could read it in the way his right eye twitched slightly. It would be invisible to anyone else, but Nick had been sat across from him to play chess and learn the art of patience too many times to miss it.

He was a chess piece jumping off the board to cause his own havoc instead of following orders, and Chapel had never been good at handling unexpected elements in the master plan. 

_(the returning son always garners surprise and he pretends there’s no sting from the wobble in Chapel’s voice as he calls Nick a disappointment)_

The apple was in his hands for the first time. It was crisp and sweet and as he bit a piece off he felt like Eve with the flood of knowledge on his tongue. He could be better. Nicholas D. Wolfwood. A saved sinner at last. 

He turned his back to head back to Vash.

_(he makes a choice he makes the_ **_right_ ** _choice and then_

_it was the wrong choice after all_

_a man reaps what he sows his ritual god requires a sacrifice and he thought he could offer honey and now at the altar he finds his god demands his blood)_

His priority was finding Vash. Vash needed to know where Knives was. Vash needed all the information Wolfwood could give him if he was to stand any chance of saving humanity.

He’d thought there would be time after he’d dealt with Chapel and that he’d be able to explain.

He’d been wrong.

_(like so many other things in his life he’s wrong but man is born a mortal being and he has made many mistakes in his time_

_he can be more careful next time. next life.)_

Vash had questions but Nick’d left by that point. A wounded animal will always run home and it’s not like he’d ever known anything more than the Church. The twin suns were beating down on the desert planet outside but the flagstone floor was cool beneath his feet and he felt a little bit of peace smoothing over the jagged edges of the hole in his soul as he dropped to his knees to confess.

_(his first and his final confession he curses the knowledge he’s blessed with he’s spent enough time watching the life trickle out of someone to know that’s what’s happening here the wages of sin are death and he’s always known his sins are too heavy to ever atone and shrug off and his revelation came too late and maybe he should have been asking for forgiveness all along and maybe it’s better that he hasn’t dared attract the attention of a wrathful god_

_maybe he’ll get the gold chariot maybe he’ll just turn to back to dust but what really matters is that he_

_doesn’t_

  
  


_want_

  
  
  


_to_

  
  
  
  
  


_go)_

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist for this fic:  
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7ugFDlkCrGSOf9Etx8JZwT?si=NenIX-gYSq65n9BtIv7_-A  
> Some of the songs are explicitly referenced in the fic - also referenced are [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] - e e cummings and If - Rudyard Kipling, and various bits of scripture.
> 
> I am on Tumblr at periperiperivale.tumblr.com and Twitter as @perivale_ but both are mostly used for reblogging/retweeting art made by other people.


End file.
